Third Sunday in Lent March 14, 2004.

Isaiah 55:1-9

Psalm 63:1-8

1 Corinthians 10:1-13

Luke 13:1-9

First Reading

As we progress through Lent, the message of the texts becomes more urgent: Repent or perish! The danger that loomed before Jesus in last week's Gospel reading now looms before us. We have time to turn from our ways and receive God's mercy, but the time is short, and so we are called now to repentance.

In Isaiah 55:1-9 God invites the "thirsty" and the "poor" to an abundant banquet for which no one has to work but which God is giving out of generosity. God is inviting Israel to return to God and listen so that they may live. We are reminded of the passage from Joel that began this Lenten season on Ash Wednesday: Return to the Lord, your God, for God is gracious and merciful. Such grace and mercy are offered here, as God promises to restore a nation that has turned away from God, if only they will repent and turn back to God. Now is the time to repent while God is near, now is the time to see the salvation God is preparing for those who turn back from their wicked ways. Just as God looked with love on David, so too will God look with favor on Israel.

Paul warns the Corinthians against using Christ's grace as a warrant for rejecting the law completely and living lives full of immorality. The Corinthians apparently feel immune to the consequences of the law, believing that God's mercy will extend to them regardless of whether or not they repent. Paul uses an example from Israel's history, reminding the Corinthians of the exodus when God was not pleased with the Israelites' behavior and struck dead "most of them" for their disobedience. If the Israelites, whom God chose and accompanied through the desert, were not immune to God's wrath, why should the Corinthians believe that they are immune from punishment? Paul cautions them, then, against committing the sins of the wilderness: idolatry, sexual immorality, putting Christ to the test, and complaining. Their fate serves as our example but with the promise that God is faithful and will not let their temptations overwhelm them.

Luke provides two more examples of people who experienced great calamity and uses these examples as a call to repentance. Two episodes, mentioned nowhere else in Scripture, are lifted up as examples of suffering and premature death: Pilate's cruelty of mingling the blood of the Galileans with their sacrifices and the collapse of the tower of Siloam. Jesus states that those people who perished in both cases were no worse sinners than anyone else. Jesus' point is not God's judgment on callous, unrepentant sinners. He comments on these two stories instead to demonstrate the need for repentance, something that the people who perished had no opportunity to do before their deaths. Jesus does not cast judgment on the people who died or even say that these tragedies were God's design. Rather, he increases the urgency for his listeners to repent immediately.

The final parable Jesus tells in this passage illustrates that the repentant life bears as much fruit as a tree that has been treated with fertilizer. The fig tree, barren for three years, is granted yet another year to produce fruit, with the help of some manure. The gardener has shown the tree grace in letting it live for another year, a grace that we rely on daily as sinners. But the time is short; fruit is expected within a year, or the tree will be cut down. The message of "repent or perish" is ominously clear.

Pastoral Reflection

Those of us who garden can appreciate the frustration of the owner of the fig tree that has produced no fruit for three years. I have a grapevine in my backyard that produced beautiful grapes last year. This year, only half of the vines produced leaves, and there is no fruit. Many attribute the vine's fruitlessness to a warmer winter; others suggest insufficient pruning as the cause of its fruitlessness. In any case, the fault of the vine's lack of grapes does not appear to belong to the vine but rather to the climate or to the gardener's inattentiveness. The vine depends on good growing conditions, the care of the gardener, and the second chance the gardener gives it to produce fruit next year. But if it fails to produce I will likely cut it down. Having a barren grapevine in the corner of my backyard is not aesthetically pleasing, nor does it serve its original purpose of providing fruit.

The parable in Luke demonstrates the interdependence between the fig tree, the gardener, and the owner. The fig tree depends on the care of the gardener to provide the right conditions for growth, and it depends on the owner not to have it cut down quite yet. The gardener depends on the owner to allow him another year to nurture the tree in hopes that it will produce fruit. The gardener also depends on the fig tree to blossom and grow, lest he be given no choice but to cut it down. The grace shown by the owner, first, by allowing the barren tree to stand for three years and then by giving the gardener one more year demonstrates the importance of the fig tree to that owner. But the time is short! A barren fig tree takes up valuable garden space and nutrients that fruitful trees can use.

We are as dependent on God's mercy through Jesus Christ as the fig tree is on the mercy of the gardener and owner. We depend on God to provide us what we need to live on a daily basis and to forgive our faithlessness--our inability to produce the fruits of the Spirit, as it were. We are dependent on Jesus Christ to save us from our inability to love, show patience, or practice kindness or generosity. We are dependent on God to give us another chance, just as God gave the Israelites numerous chances to repent. But God also wishes for us to blossom and grow, to obey God's commands and to turn our hearts back to God. If we do not do this, if we do not bear fruit, we risk judgment and separation from God. God will show us grace, just as the gardener did for the fig tree, but we are called not to take that grace for granted. We are called to respond to God's grace and nurture by bearing fruit.